Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Connect Group results presentation. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. As a reminder, this webcast is being recorded. A reminder to everyone that the presentation can be accessed either through the webcast or the teleconference. Accessing the call through the webcast will allow you to see the Lesaka management team and the slide deck that they will be presenting versus dialing into the teleconference, which will only provide audio. The link, as well as the presentation, are available on our investor relations website at ir.lesakatech.com. I'll repeat that. ir.lesakatech.com. Additionally, the company filed an amendment to its April 20th, 2022 Form 8-K after the market closed on June 30th, 2022, which is also available on our investor relations website. We'll address any questions you may have at the end of the presentation. For those joining us via the webcast, you will be able to ask your questions live, and for those joining via teleconference, please press star one to ask your questions. During this presentation, we will be making forward-looking statements, and I ask you to look at the cautionary language contained in our Form 10-Q regarding the risks and uncertainties associated with forward-looking statements. I'd also like to remind everyone that we're currently in a closed or quiet period until the release of our results in early September, and are limited to discussing information contained in this presentation or previously released to the market. Joining me today from Lesaka's management team are Chris Meyer, Group CEO, Naeem Kola, Group CFO, Lincoln Mali, the CEO of Lesaka Southern Africa, and Steven Heilbron, CEO of the Connect Group. I'd now like to turn over the call to Chris. Chris, platform is yours. Thank you, Bronwyn. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our Connect Group results. Thank you for your time and interest in Lesaka. To outline today's agenda quickly, I'll start with an introduction to Lesaka, our platform and the leadership team for those of you who may be new to our company. Steve Heilbron, the Connect Group CEO, will take you through the Connect Group strategy and operations, as well as the results for the years ended 28th February 2021 and 2022, which we released last week. Naeem will present a combined performance of the group for the 12 months to 28th February 2022, and these numbers are in addition to the pro forma numbers disclosed in the 8-K. I will then close off with a recap of our strategic focus areas before we go into a Q&A session. Thank you. With that, at Lesaka, our vision is to build and operate the leading South African full-service fintech platform, offering cash management, payments, and financial services to underserved merchants and consumers. Our core purpose is to improve people's lives by bringing financial inclusion to South Africa's underserved customers and helping small businesses access the financial services they need to prosper. We achieve this through our ability to efficiently digitize the last mile of financial inclusion and to provide a full-service fintech platform across cash and digital, serving the needs of both while also facilitating the secular shift from cash to digital that is taking place. At Lesaka, we operate a dual-sided merchant and consumer ecosystem powered by our proprietary technologies and a high-touch distribution network. In our consumer segment, our offering encompasses a transactional banking account, a simple and transparent lending product, and an insurance proposition. We currently have a consumer client base of just over 1.1 million active accounts. In our merchant segment, we operate one of the largest bank-independent financial switches in South Africa with integrations to over 40,000 terminals for bill payments and value-added services. We also manage point of sale terminals for third parties, and we provide various cryptographic solutions. The Connect Group acquisition adds to this by bringing a base of over 52,000 MSMEs, many of whom are informal businesses. Taken together, our comprehensive merchant offering across cash, card, payment, VAS, and capital solutions helps our merchants grow, manage, and digitize their businesses. The Lesaka platform, we have a large TAM of more than ZAR 150 billion, and this TAM broadly splits into two overlapping markets, providing consumer financial services to South Africa's more than 26 million adults in LSMs 1- 6, and providing merchant financial services to South Africa's micro and small businesses, of which there are an estimated 700,000 formal merchants and 1.4 million informal merchants. Our addressable market is growing and it's supported by long-term tailwinds. South Africa is primarily a cash-based economy with approximately 60% of transactions still conducted in cash. As you know, worldwide, there is a secular shift towards digital payment methods, and South Africa is part of this shift. Our business model is well-positioned to serve the needs of both cash and digital within this context. The Connect acquisition brings approximately 6,500 merchants in the formal market and over 45,000 devices deployed in the informal market, which from a growth opportunity perspective, is less than 5% of the addressable market. In our consumer segment, we currently have just over 1.1 million active account holders, which represent approximately 4% share of our TAM. We believe we are well-positioned to grow into a leading financial services provider with a particular emphasis on the grant recipient customer base. The combined ecosystem of our merchants and consumer business therefore offers over 58,500 touchpoints that we have with our potential market. Since our board set a new vision for Lesaka and embarked on the transformation of Net1 in early 2021, we have been building an entirely new leadership team, bringing in the right people to transform Lesaka into a leading fintech platform. I'm glad to say this is largely complete, and we now have an excellent mix of operational and fintech experience, entrepreneurial flair, leadership, and corporate governance skills to develop this business into the leading fintech company in South Africa. With that, I'd like to hand over to Steve, who will take you through the Connect Group and the financial statements recently released to the market. Steve. Thank you, Chris. At the outset, let me say that the past few months have been an exciting time for the company as we bring the two businesses together. We have had a lot of engagement, both at a leadership level as well as on the ground, where our teams are starting to work very well together. We have some exciting product and distribution plans in the pipeline, and we are looking forward to bringing these to market as we continue to bolster our leading fintech platform. I will spend some time taking you through our journey and strategy before getting into the numbers in more detail, and then I'll hand over to Naeem, who will talk to the combined business from a financial perspective. When we embarked on our journey in 2013 with the acquisition of Cash Connect, our focus was on innovation and disruption in the SA financial services sector. This ambition was fueled with a purpose and a passion for financial inclusion and servicing the underserved merchant. We believed that this would need to be achieved through the use of technology and in an innovative and disruptive way as we were not going to succeed at the level that we wanted if we took a traditional approach in competing with existing incumbents. We also believed that it was critical for the South African economy as a whole and for the MSME sector to thrive, as this holds the key to growth and employment in our economy. We wanted to back the small guy in a space dominated by larger retailers and provide tools for them to grow revenues and manage their businesses more efficiently. We started out with a footprint of just under 600 sites. However, we were on the ground, and with insights into our customers' businesses, we started developing a very good understanding of the pain points that they face on a daily basis. Our growth strategy was targeted to address these pain points in order to enable merchants to grow their businesses. We quickly started gathering momentum. Our staff at Connect Group are a cornerstone of our success. We have a culture of innovation and execution, and the team is focused on delivering on our promise to our merchant segment. We operate in a competitive but relatively untapped market in the informal space, and are focused on ensuring that we have the product set and the motivation to continue our growth trajectory. At the Connect Group, we are focused on identifying product and service opportunities as they present themselves, and we have the ability to implement quickly with a strong track record of execution. We have continually expanded our product set to address our merchants' needs. Starting out with our cash vault business for formal SME merchants in 2013, we have built a suite of products covering cash, card, VAS, payments, and capital for both the informal and the formal merchants. I will go into more detail later, and it will be evident that we have achieved significant market penetration in our core products in the merchant segment. In terms of our transformation, our employee base is 75% transformed in terms of the South African BEE code and 31% of our managerial staff are women. We will continue on a path of organic growth supported by acquisitions where we can accelerate our strategy. An example of this was when we wanted to extend our penetration into the informal market, we acquired the Kazang business. This gave us the desired last-mile delivery at that time to 27,000 informal merchants to whom we could sell our products and our solutions. We paid ZAR 800 million for a business doing ZAR 80 million in EBITDA. Twelve months later, Kazang produced ZAR 167 million in EBITDA and continues to outperform as we expand this network and add new products. From a financial perspective, we continue to deliver strong results. We have achieved a 24% growth in net revenues for 2022, and the business has delivered a five-year compound annual growth rate of 40% in EBITDA. We continue to be highly cash generative with ZAR 181 million free cash flow before tax and interest. This is after reinvesting ZAR 193 million back into our business in the past financial year. This performance has been achieved on the back of a culture of innovation and execution that we will continue to entrench as we move forward and capitalize on the platform that we have built. Our quest is to ensure that we deliver to our merchant segment innovative and enabling products, technology, and distribution capability. This will enable us to capture the open space and dominate our chosen market. With Lesaka alongside us now, there's an even larger opportunity. I'd like to spend a few minutes going through our products so that you have a good overview of how we serve our merchants and how we make our money. Firstly, we target two different sectors of the merchant market, the informal and the formal sector. The informal market is characterized by a turnover of under ZAR 150,000 per month, and generally has limited access to formal banking relationships. These would be your traders and spaza shop owners located in rural areas or urban townships. This is a vast market in South Africa and is a key focus for us. We also have a suite of products targeted at SMEs in the formal sector. These merchants are characterized by a significantly higher turnover and access to the formal banking sector and are often over-banked. A fuel station, forecourt or liquor store would be a typical client in this space. Kazang is our brand in the informal market. This is a strong brand and is a market leader. Kazang Connect is effectively a virtual vending machine or e-wallet in the merchant store, and provides the merchants with a wide product bouquet to sell to customers ranging from airtime, data, electricity, DStv, lottery, money transfers and gaming vouchers. Customers and merchants can also pay their bills to various suppliers and municipalities at the merchant stores through the Kazang device or on our app. Kazang Pay is our card acquiring business in the informal space. Our 46,000 Kazang Connect VAS devices in the field can be enabled to access card payments without additional infrastructure spend. This is a large growth opportunity for us. Kazang Vaults is our cash management and digitization solution. Our secure CAT4 vaults are placed in merchant stores and as cash is deposited into the vault, it is digitized in the form of a prepaid e-wallet and is available to the merchant for VAS products and bill and supplier payments. This eliminates cash risk, it creates liquidity, and it saves the merchant significant time and cost normally incurred in depositing cash. On the back of our success of Capital Connect in the formal market, we have extended the provision of growth capital through Kazang Advance to informal merchants. With detailed insights into our merchants' businesses, we are able to offer growth and working capital with approval in minutes. Moving to our formal market offering under the Connect brand. Firstly, our Cash Connect product is the formal market cash management and digitization solution, and operates in a similar fashion to that described above under Kazang Vaults. It was our initial product which we launched the Connect Group with, and it has evolved over the years. Under the Card Connect brand, we offer traditional card acquiring. Here we compete with large banks and other providers, and our competitive advantage is lower than with other products. However, it's an essential element to our offering to the formal SME merchant. Our Capital Connect credit offering has proved to be disruptive and innovative. We were recently awarded Retail Funder of the Year in 2021 at the Wealth & Finance FinTech Awards. With our insights into our merchants' businesses and cash flows through our cash and/or card products, we are able to approve loans to our merchants within minutes. To touch on EasyPay in the formal market segment, this is not a Connect Group product, but comes from the Lesaka stable. EasyPay is a VAS and bill payment solution, which is a very strong brand in the enterprise market. We are very excited to have access to this product and technology, and we will be launching a new product to our formal merchants imminently on the back of work that our product teams have done since the acquisition. In summary then, our products reach to both formal and informal merchants, is designed to increase merchant revenues through providing access to relevant products and services and alleviate the pain points that they encounter on a daily basis. We will continue with our strategy of innovation and disruption to assist our merchants to grow their businesses and make their operations even more efficient. Taking a closer look at what drives our consistent revenue and EBITDA growth, I'd like to address the slide we showed at the Lesaka third quarter results, which provides a very good overview of the growth that we have achieved. Our Kazang VAS and bill payment solution has achieved a three-year 26% compound annual growth rate in devices with over 45,000 devices deployed as at the 28th of February 2022. The value processed through these devices has grown at an even better rate of 53% per annum over the same three-year period. This growth is due to the continual product innovation by our dedicated business development team, which has increased the suite of products that our merchants can sell, coupled with strong geographic expansion arising from our national sales effort. This has attracted new merchants to Kazang and has increased the footfall in merchant stores. In Card Connect and Kazang Pay, our card acquiring business, the large increase in terminals to over 18,000 is primarily due to the introduction of Kazang Pay in the informal market. Now, while cash is still dominant in the informal segment, there's a nascent trend towards card acceptance. This is a real growth opportunity for us, considering the previously mentioned duality of the 46,000 Kazang Connect devices which can be card-enabled. As an indication of the growth of Kazang Pay, in November 2020, we processed ZAR 5 million for the month with 320 merchants. In February 2022, 14 months later, we processed in excess of ZAR 300 million and had acquired 16,000 active merchants. Our Cash Connect solution, which effectively puts the bank in the merchant store, has shown consistent growth over many years in the formal SME market with 4,000 vaults installed at year-end. On the back of Cash Connect, we launched our Kazang Vault solution for the informal market, which has gained good traction and will drive further growth. Our Capital Connect credit solution has achieved excellent growth rates since launch in 2018. We have grown the number of loans at a compound annual growth rate of 58% per annum since inception, and have advanced just under ZAR 1.3 billion to SMEs to February 2022. We recently launched Kazang Advance, which is also a growth capital product, but this time targeting our informal market. We anticipate good take-up of this product from our Kazang merchants. Now, this should give a sense of the type of growth we have achieved through constant product innovation and expansion of our distribution capabilities. We have managed to show consistent and strong double-digit growth, and we believe that the fundamentals which underpin this growth remain intact. It should be highlighted that much of this growth over the previous three years has occurred during a period of significant economic disruption to merchants as a result of five lockdowns due to the COVID pandemic, as well as the July 2021 riots in key economic areas. Now, as discussed in our transaction presentation in January 2022, we look at revenue on a net basis while we report revenue on a gross basis. The net revenue figure calculated here is a non-GAAP measure, but we believe this to be a more appropriate top-line measure to use given the materiality of the airtime face value included in gross revenue. For 2022, included in our disclosed revenue figure of ZAR 5.2 billion is an amount of ZAR 3.8 billion, which is the face value of airtime. The net revenue figure adjusts for this face value so that only the commission earned on the sale of airtime is included. We feel that this provides for a more accurate analysis and assessment of our performance. Our net revenue and gross profit analysis addressed in the following slides uses the net revenue figure of ZAR 1.3 billion for 2022. We grew net revenues by 24% in 2022. As seen from our throughput numbers as presented earlier, this is not a case of bouncing back from the COVID lockdowns, as we achieved very good growth in net revenues during 2020, and we were pleased with another 24% growth to February 2022. Our newer product lines have demonstrated healthy growth rates, and we are encouraged by the uptake. Our Kazang Pay offering drove an increase in net revenue of 51% in our card acquiring business, and our Capital Connect credit offering increased net revenues by a further 70%. I referred to our Kazang Advance capital solution in the informal market earlier, but this was not launched by year-end and so did not contribute to the revenue numbers shown here. Our cash acquiring net revenues grew by 19% in 2022, and our Kazang VAS and bill payment revenues were up 28%. Overall, across all our major product sets, we were very pleased with the strong net revenue growth in 2022. We have been able to both scale our existing products and introduce new products to our merchants while delivering a stellar financial performance. Of a net revenue growth of 24%, we managed to increase our gross profit by 37% in the past financial year due to a strong improvement in our GP percentage from 39.5%- 43.6%. Each product set operates on its own economics with varying gross profit margins. We achieve healthy margins across all our product lines, as demonstrated by the 43.6% GP margin achieved in 2022. This is on a net revenue basis. As presented, on an EBITDA basis, which is a core KPI for us, we have been able to grow at a 40% compound annual growth rate over the past five years, including a 26% rate in achieving an EBITDA of ZAR 381 million, which was comfortably ahead of the ZAR 375 million warranted in terms of our acquisition agreement. Touching on cash flow generation, there is variability between the cash flow profiles of our different product lines. For example, our buying decisions in Kazang can influence the cash and working capital balances significantly on a monthly basis. We often take advantage of pricing opportunities. For example, bulk product purchases which can have a large impact. Our working capital balances are also subject to volumes in our merchants' vendor wallets and the timing of settlements, especially over weekends when we carry large balances. Our capital expenditures are primarily on our secure vaults and Kazang Connect POS devices, which also vary depending on market conditions. However, at a combined level, our business is highly cash generative. Of the ZAR 381 million EBITDA we generated last year, we then reinvested ZAR 193 million back into the business for working capital and growth CapEx, leaving ZAR 181 million in free cash flow before interest and tax. Thank you for your time today and for allowing us to give more color to the Connect Group strategy and performance. We look forward to releasing our results to the 15th of June, where we will be able to further demonstrate the impact that the Connect Group has had on the Merchant segment and Lesaka overall. I'll now hand over to Naeem, who will address the combined group. Thank you, Steve. As I said, the pro forma statements in our recent 8-K submissions were prepared according to the SEC rules and confirmed by opinions from our advisors. However, we feel the pro formas do not clearly show what the consolidated post-acquisition results of the Lesaka would be on a 12-month basis using a like-for-like over the period. We have therefore prepared combined accounts for the 12 months to 28th February 2022, incorporating the Connect Group and former Net1 business. We chose 28th February, as this is the latest date that we have using GAAP audited financials for both companies. We do need to point out that this is still not an ideal indication of the performance of the combined group results, and the vast majority of the cost optimization we have only started to deliver benefits after 28th February. We have just closed our financial year-end to 30 June 2022, and we'll be releasing. I think we may be having some technical difficulty there with Naeem's connection. I'm just wondering if we would like to take a short break, or Chris, do you feel you want to pick up at this juncture? No problem. Thanks, Bronwyn. Apologies for that, everybody. As Naeem was saying, we have prepared combined accounts for the 12 months to 28 February 2022, which incorporate the Connect Group and the former Net1 business. We chose 28 February, as this is the latest date that we have US GAAP audited and reviewed results for both groups. I think we do need to point out that this is still not an ideal indication of the performance of the combined group, as the vast majority of the cost optimization work we have done only started to deliver benefits after 28 February, and so will not be reflected in these numbers. We have just closed our financial year to 30 June 2022, and we'll be releasing the audited results for the group in early September. We look forward to being able to provide a much more recent and thorough representation of the group's results at that stage. As an indication of what the combined group will look like at 28th February 2022, we have calculated some headline numbers. On a U.S. GAAP basis, gross revenue of the group would be $481 million for the 12 months, with just over 70% contribution from the Connect Group. At a gross profit level, the combined operations generated $84.7 million. For operating expenses and EBITDA, these numbers will not truly reflect what the combined operations can deliver, which we will address on the next slide. We have included a more detailed income statement in the annexures for you to reference. Looking at EBITDA in more detail, on a combined basis, we have reported a normalized EBITDA loss of $15.3 million for the 12 months to 28th February. The $38.7 million normalized EBITDA loss for Lesaka is after adjusting for once-off costs we incurred in the period, including the reorganization charges and the transaction costs, which amounted to $8.7 million in total. When combined with the Connect Group's positive contribution of $25.1 million for the year, this results in a normalized group EBITDA loss of $13.5 million and $15.3 million after adjusting for pro forma stock compensation charges. This is, however, still not a true reflection of our expected performance. A significant amount of work was done in rightsizing the consumer business as part of Project Spring, which only started taking effect in late 2021, and by 28th February 2022, very little of the benefits had been realized. As mentioned in previous communications, Project Spring will result in over ZAR 300 million or approximately $18 million at current exchange rates being removed from the consumer segment cost base. With the rightsized consumer segment cost base and continued growth and profitability in our merchant segment, we believe the combined Lesaka business is now well-placed to start delivering on its potential. We'd like to show the slide that we presented at our Q3 results, which reflects the net debt position of the group after the acquisition of the Connect Group and the restructuring of Connect's debt facilities. To be clear, this is a pro forma number at 31 March 2022. At the Lesaka level, we utilized a significant portion of our cash reserves to fund the acquisition, along with ZAR 1.1 billion of debt. At the Connect Group level, part of the acquisition was funded through an upsized debt facility, and its net debt position was ZAR 1.36 billion at closing, the details of which have been provided in the recent filings. This left the group in a pro forma net debt position of $126 million. We will soon release our full year results, which will provide the actual position at year-end. Post the Connect Group acquisition, we are assessing the optimal group capital structure, including refinancing of existing debt, further realization of non-core assets in an optimal manner, and in due course, raising further capital to deliver on our growth ambitions. Thank you. I'm gonna pick up my own section now. Hopefully I covered that appropriately, Bronwyn. I'm gonna move into No, you did very well. I see Naeem is back. Naeem, do you think Chris did a great job? Apologies. I managed to get back on the last slide. For some reason, I got kicked out of this and struggled to get back in. Thank you, Chris. No problem. Let's carry on. We're very excited by our prospects now that the Connect Group is part of Lesaka. Our vision at Lesaka is to build the leading South African fintech platform offering cash management, payment processing, VAS and financial services to underserved merchants and consumers. The acquisition of the Connect Group transforms our merchant offering, our MSME footprint and our growth trajectory, while also uniquely positioning us to be the South African market leader, serving both merchants and consumers. With this acquisition of the Connect Group, Lesaka is very well-positioned in a large addressable market driven by secular trends with high growth opportunities. The Connect Group brings a differentiated merchant business characterized by high growth and robust profitability. The opportunity to integrate the Connect Group with Lesaka's consumer and merchant business, thus creating a self-reinforcing ecosystem for consumers and merchants, is a powerful proposition, and with a management team who have a proven track record of delivering growth and profitability. We believe our combined offering provides the opportunity to incentivize both our consumers and merchants to join the Lesaka platform. For example, by enabling an EasyPay Everywhere customer to deposit or withdraw funds at Kazang-enabled merchants or to receive rewards when buying their airtime, their data, electricity or other products. In turn, this should incentivize merchants to sign on to our platform, encouraged by the over a million EasyPay Everywhere customers that are based in their communities. As we develop our ecosystem, we will gain better insights into our consumers and merchants through the access to more data, and we will be in a position to deliver increasing value through innovative product design and optimal distribution. I'd like to end with a reminder of our core strategic focus areas for the group. Firstly, we will focus on growing the merchant base for the Connect Group, forming the foundation of our enlarged merchant division. Secondly, we remain laser-focused on returning the consumer business to profitability through a combination of account growth, cost optimization, and growth in ARPU. Thirdly, our focus is on developing a world-class fintech organization, which for us means attracting highly talented people, building an environment where they can outperform, and developing a clear vision and strategy where everyone is aligned and understands their role, and they know what winning looks like. Our fourth area of focus is our key stakeholders, which include our regulators, SASSA, the government agencies, and most importantly, our local communities. Lesaka is about trust, which is at the center of everything we do in serving and supporting our customers. Since the Connect acquisition has closed, we have spent a significant amount of time together as an executive team, but at the operational level. We are very excited by the way our teams have come together so quickly and are working on a number of exciting propositions, as Steve mentioned, which combine both companies' technology and expertise, and will be in the market shortly. There's a significant opportunity for Lesaka as we stand today, and we are all excited and motivated to take advantage of our unique position in the market. Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to hand over to Bronwyn to facilitate the question and answer session. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Chris, we have got a couple of questions coming through, and I just want to start with the first one. This is from Keith McLachlan from Integral Asset Management. Why did the Card Connect/Kazang Pay devices grow so much in the FY 2022 period as opposed to the years before, where the growth is quite flat? What changed? In Connect, what is the segmental split between informal to formal market exposure? There are a couple of others, but let's start with those two. I'm gonna ask Steve to answer the question. Steve, if you wouldn't mind, the question around growth in devices. Okay. The significant growth that we spoke to between November 2020, where we had 320 merchants, and 14 months later, 16,000- Of course, the significant growth between ZAR 5 million and ZAR 300 million was really a relaunch of the product. We had piloted the product historically in Kazang. We took it off the shelf, repositioned the product, and relaunched it in October 2020. This time we got it right. You know, it's an innovative product. It settles directly into an electronic wallet. It gives instant settlement to the merchant, loads their wallet, and has a number of features which gave us real traction. The growth that you're seeing in the card acquiring business is grown almost entirely by the growth of card acquiring in the informal market, where, as we said, this is a nascent market. The majority of what takes place from a transactional perspective in the informal market is really cash-based. I think probably 90% of what we see in our spaza world is 90% cash, but growing digitally. The ISO business, which is Card Connect, is a business that grows at 5%-6%. It's commoditized, homogenous, very competitive, but as I said earlier, it's an essential part of our offering to the SME market and helps us evaluate credit actually for Capital Connect in that space based on the data that we derive from that. There was a second question. I didn't quite get it. Bronwyn, if you wanna maybe pose it again. The question, I'll come in, Steve. Yes, absolutely. The question was about the segmental split between informal and formal markets. Sorry, Bronwyn. Oh, sorry, Chris. Can you- Go ahead. I lost you there. The question? Chris is gonna pick up on the question. Perfect. Okay. Between the segments informal and formal market exposure. Chris, you take that away, and then I'm gonna go to the call for questions. Thanks, Bronwyn. Yeah, so the split between the formal and informal markets in the Connect Group. The Cash Connect business and Card Connect, as Steve was previously talking about, have a market-leading position. Their predominant position is in the formal market, where we've got around 4,000, just over 4,000 devices, in the Cash Connect space. The Kazang business is predominantly in the informal market, where we mentioned in excess of 45,000 devices. That's broadly the split. The Kazang business is more focused in the informal market of this space, and the Connect business more in the formal market. Chris, just staying with you before we go to Chorus call and finishing this line of questioning from Keith McLachlan. How different is the unit economics in these markets from your I think I might have lost Bronwyn there. I don't know if it's just me or? Yeah, I think we've lost her. Yeah, I think Bronwyn, Steve. Suffering from what I suffered. Steve, the question. I can see the question. I'm gonna pose it to you if that's okay. Sure. It's talking about the difference in unit economics between the Connect businesses in the formal and the informal market. I'll just re-read the question. How different is the unit economics in these markets from your Connect business perspective, and how do you manage the cash risk in Kazang Vaults? That's the second question. Okay. As we pointed out, we achieved a 43-odd% GP margin across our net revenues. Now, all of our product sets, both in the formal and informal market and across cash, card, VAS bill payment, and credit, provide very healthy GP margins. They are varied, but the GP margin at 43% across our net revenues is reflective of the fact that these have very good take rates right across the piece. To your second question, Chris, was? Is how do we protect cash in the Kazang Vaults, but I'll probably expand that a little more. Sure. more. Sure. more. Sure. That's fine. The whole premise of our vaulting business is that we put the bank in your store. Our retailers, within seconds of receiving cash, and let me remind people that the demographic in South Africa is still very much cash-centered in the areas that we cover. Within seconds of receiving cash, our retailers drop cash into our vault, and we take the risk. Now, these vaults are Category 4 units. We manufacture these vaults ourselves. It would take you six to eight hours to penetrate a vault. The only way in reality, would be to use plastic explosives, and in that instance, the cash is destroyed. As a result of that, these vaults have an incredibly good reputation. 90% of hits in this country, by the way, are inside jobs, and the reputation is very good, so really the syndicates don't really have a go at our vaults. In reality, in-store, we very seldom get hit, and when we do, we are able to protect the cash in more than 90% of the occasions. When we do lose cash, it's normally in transit. It's not in the vaults. Of course, we cover all of that risk. That cash is covered under a service level agreement. It's carried by G4S, Fidelity, and SBV. We have very clearly defined protocols on how to carry that cash. From a retailer perspective, the minute the money is dropped in our vault, there's a risk transfer, and the cash is immediately made available digitally so that the retailer can get on with running their business, buy their inventory, pay their staff, and not worry about cash risk either in store or in transit. Right. There's a follow-up from Keith McLachlan here. What costs were cut out or optimized in Project Spring? Chris? Thanks, Bronwyn. Project Spring, which was focused on our consumer business, just make the segue away from our merchant business for a second. A number of phases to Project Spring, and the way I would describe it is, you know, one of the biggest elements of it was the repositioning our business from being in the logistics of grant disbursement to a business focused on sales and customer service. And under the old Net1, in terms of grant disbursement, there were a lot of operational roles and a lot of infrastructure that existed in order to ensure that cash was, you know, moved efficiently around the country and dispersed. For example, we had a large fleet of mobile vehicles with mobile ATMs around the country that no longer were needed as we moved into our new model. We also had a number of roles in our branches, again, which were not needed. It was a root and branch review as we shifted the emphasis from the logistics of grant disbursement to sales. What we've said is, you know, in the financial year to June 2022, we took out in excess of ZAR 150 million of costs. On a fully annualized basis going forward, so from this financial year ending FY 2023, we expect to see in excess of ZAR 300 million per annum of ongoing cost savings through that process. I think just to add, we will continue to look at our cost base, particularly through the lens of performance, where we bring a lot of focus into our branch network. We're starting to get really good insights into our branches. We want to look at them commercially and make sure that they're all performing. We will continue to focus on that. We have spoken about how we are more and more starting to partner with retailers. For example, we've moved over half of our ATM network into retailers now. That is all about continuing to optimize the model on the consumer side. Keith here is pushing you a little further, Chris. Another question, Keith McLachlan. I assume that the Kazang and Connect devices deployed in the field, these are still owned by the company and on its balance sheet. How long does the average device last before needing to be replaced? Steve, do you wanna pick that up? Sure. In relation to the vaulting business, all of those assets are on balance sheet, and they're operating rentals. The estimated useful life for those vaulting assets are eight years. We generally from a cash flow payback perspective, the cash flow payback is very strong in that particular space. From a competitive perspective, I'd prefer not to disclose exactly what that is, but it's a very, very good cash payback in relation to the vaulting business. Remember, we essentially are running two businesses off that vault. On the one hand, it's a rental business, and on the other hand, it's every ZAR 1 that gets deposited, on average we earn ZAR 0.26 per ZAR 100. We would earn essentially ZAR 2.6 billion per ZAR 1 billion. Of course, we have a processing charge against that ZAR 2.6 billion, but that is how we get our return off that infrastructure. In relation to the Kazang devices, again, all of those devices are on our balance sheet. These devices cost somewhere between $80-$100. Again, the cash payback is well under. Again, I don't necessarily want to disclose that timeframe, but the paybacks on these particular assets are very strong. In all instances, they would be under 20 months in terms of full payback and estimated useful life is well beyond that. I just wanna see if there are any questions from Chorus Call on the line. Keegan, can you give us an indication there, in terms of the audio calls? Thank you. At this time, there are no questions on the phone lines. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. We will pause briefly just to see if there are any questions. The first question comes from Raj Sharma from B. Riley. Please proceed, Raj. Yeah. Thank you for letting me ask a question. Thank you for a very detailed presentation. I had a couple of questions and one just about. I just wanted to clarify and maybe Chris, you already talked about this. The cost cuts, the cost base reduction that you were talking about, ZAR 300 million rand, when does that get done by? Has a part of that already been executed in your numbers? If I was to look at the last reported quarter of March, how much of that ZAR 300 million rand is reflected in the numbers so far? By when would they be complete? Hi, Raj. The full ZAR 300 million of cost actions, if you like, have been completed. They were completed in the financial year to FY 2022 June 2022. The actions were completed, and they resulted in savings in that financial year of just over ZAR 150 million. Those savings effectively started coming through from in the second half of our financial year and mainly ramping up through Q3 into Q4. The actions were taken in that financial year. On a fully annualized basis, those then translate into ZAR 300 million in excess of ZAR 300 million saving in FY 2023. The actions have completed, and we need to see those cost savings now coming through. Part of them was, you know, we ran a what we call a Section 189 restructuring, where a significant number of roles were put at risk. There's a cost saving in terms of people in some of our branches as those roles were removed. Just to be clear, those actions have completed. Just to also emphasize something, you know, as my earlier comments around Project Spring. Project Spring is now complete. What we continue to do will be to look at our branch network through a very commercial, performance-driven eye. We are looking at ways of continuously optimizing our model. I talked about moving ATMs out of branches and into retailers. We see that as a good strategy, and we think that has got more potential now as, you know, with the combined Lesaka Group, in the sense that we can build a stronger proposition for merchants and consumers with our combined offerings. We will continue to look at our branch infrastructure, and we will continue to optimize, but through a lens of performance and commerciality. Chris- So, uh- Another question. Just to clarify. Sorry. Go ahead, Raj. Just to clarify, the March numbers reflect some of the cost reduction. The June numbers have not been reported yet, of course, and they will show a further reduction in operating expenses. Th-then- You're speaking on ZAR 50 million. Yes. rand for the six months of this year, right? Just again to confirm, the cost savings to June 2022, we guided in excess of ZAR 150 million, and that would have come through over the course of the Q3 and Q4. Yes, you'll continue to see those cost savings coming through in our Q4, so they should be in our June numbers, full year numbers. That's right. Another question here, Rolly Rawls. Raj, did you want to. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Can I ask another question? On the working capital, this is probably for Steve, on the Connect numbers, 2022, year 2022 versus year 2021, the working capital changes were huge in 2022 versus 2021. Even though revenues and EBITDA were higher, operating cash flows were lower. Is that? Can you talk about that? Was that building up to some growth or? And how do you see working capital needs for the business over the next few years or, you know, next year or two? Raj, maybe we can take this offline if you want more detail. As I covered in the presentation, specifically in our Kazang business, there are two things that affected year-end balances and kind of can in fact affect month-end balances. Remember, the numbers you're looking at are a snapshot as at the 28th of February. In our Kazang business, we often take advantage of bulk buying opportunities, which can be quite significant and give us deeper margins. There was some of that. Well, it takes place regularly throughout the year, but we were in process with that at 28th of February. For example, a bulk purchase of airtime would push up inventory levels of airtime and reduce cash balances. Another example of that is our cash balances are significantly affected by the value of cash in our merchant wallets and our settlement cycle over a weekend that can be significantly affected by settlement dates. The general CapEx, which relates specifically to our vaults and point-of-sale devices is very predictable. There was some buying last year, where we had to deal with supply chain issues, which I'm sure you understand in relation to COVID, where we had to pre-buy parts, componentry, steel, and even devices in terms of our POS business for Kazang. Based on issues of getting stuff across the water. Some of those anomalies will be there, but I think you'll see probably a lot of normalization now as we move forward in relation to my last point. Raj, are there questions from your side? No, I'm done with my questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. Rolly Rawls, Chris. Does Net1 supply hardware devices to Connect Group? Is this a new hardware sales opportunity or have they always been a supplier? Excuse me. Thanks, Bronwyn. To date, the former Net1 was not a supplier to Kazang. Kazang's device sourced directly from a manufacturer in China. That said, what we are doing is we have rolled the existing Net1 merchant businesses under the Connect Group management team. Specifically, our Nu- Edge business, which is our POS device distribution business, is now part of the broader merchant business under Steve's guidance. Therefore, we have every opportunity to look at that business, you know, from a group perspective and assess the opportunity that may exist between those business areas. That is certainly something that is part of, you know, bringing these businesses together. Another question coming in here. Jeroen Evelien, Private Investor. Can we expect the same compound annual growth rate numbers in the coming years? Again, Chris, just mindful please of a forward-looking statement. Yeah. Look, I think, thank you for the question. I think what we've tried to do is give you a sense of historic growth rates and also the drivers of growth, the key drivers of growth. You know, we believe the market is intact for us to continue to grow the business, and to continue to build a compelling proposition in our merchant space. You know, Steve, I don't know if you wanna come in, but you know, in terms of forward-looking statements, we're not in a position to give you that kind of direct guidance. No, I think, Chris, you've hit the nail on the head. As we said, the business has a five-year 40% compound annual growth rate. We did specifically refer to the fact that to February 2022 for the last year, that was 26% growth in EBITDA. As you said, Chris, the fundamentals that underpinned that growth remain intact. Thanks, Steve. Another question coming here from Jared Houston from All-Weather. Does Connect Group sell sports betting or casino vouchers in value-added services? If so, can you talk to recent growth trends? Again, mindful of forward-looking statements. Again, the answer is yes. We have a full bouquet that sits on the Kazang platform, which will cover a wide array of gaming products. The product providers there would include Betway, they would include Hollywoodbets, both of which have a broad array of sports bets as well as gaming products. In terms of growth, this has been an area that has grown for many months and many years. It makes up a component of our monthly throughput, and we're close to ZAR 1.8 billion-ZAR 1.9 billion of throughput in that arena. You know, gaming would make up less than 10%, between 8%-10% of that. Well, thank you very much. We've answered the questions that have come through online. I really appreciate Naeem Kola and Steven Heilbron joining us here for the call. Thank you very much. I look forward to our next results announcement, which will be in the next quarter. Anything from your side, Naeem Kola, in closing, Steven Heilbron, in closing? No, just to say thank you to everybody for dialing in. We know there's a lot of people on the call, and we really appreciate the interest shown in our business. Hopefully we've provided some more color around the Connect Group that can supplement what we released last week. We look forward to presenting our full year results in due course and interacting with everybody again. Thanks very much. Thank you very much to the team. Have a good afternoon, evening, wherever you may be in the world. You may be just starting your day. That's all from the team right now. Thank you.